Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Yü Huai
YÜ Huai 余懷 (T. 澹心, 無懷, 曼持, 曼翁, 廣霞), Aug. 25, 1616–1696, July, poet, was a native of P'u-t'ien, Fukien. When the Manchu troops advanced to Nanking in 1645 he was a student of the Imperial Academy in that city. Thereafter he lived for a time in Hsia-p'ei, Kiangnan, but spent most of his life at Nanking. An intimate friend of Yu T'ung [q. v.], Yü Huai, too, was a poet who seems to have had sufficient leisure to devote to his art. The best known of his works is the 板橋雜記 Pan-ch'iao tsa-chi, in 3 chüan, giving his reminiscences of the life of the singing girls of Nanking during the more tranquil days before that city fell under Manchu rule. This work was first printed in 1697 in the initial instalment of the Chao-tai ts'ung-shu (see under Ch'ên Chên-hui) and has passed through many editions since that time.
Several minor works by Yü Huai may be mentioned: 硯林 Yen-lin, a treatise on ink-slabs, written in 1686 and first printed in the above ts'ung-shu in 1697; 茶史補 Ch'a-shih pu, being notes on the history of tea, written to supplement a more complete work, Ch'a-shih, on the same theme by a contemporary, Liu Yüan-ch'ang 劉源長, and published by the latter's son in 1677; and 婦人鞋襪考 Fu-jên hsieh-wa k'ao, a brief treatise on the foot-wear of women, which appeared in the T'an-chi ts'ung-shu (see under Wang Chung) late in the K'ang-hsi period. A work of his on the personal names of women mentioned in Chinese history, 宮閨小名後錄 Kung-kuei hsiao-ming hou lu, is a supplement to a work by Yu T'ung on the same subject. It was printed in 1694, two years before Yü Huai died. Collections of his poems and essays appeared under two titles: 研山堂集 Yen-shan t'ang chi and 味外軒稿 Wei-wai hsüan kao. Two other works by him have recently been printed: a hook of miscellaneous notes in 8 chüan, 東山談苑 Tung-shan t'an-yüan, which appeared in 1934; and a collection of poems in irregular meter, entitled 玉琴齋詞 Yü-ch'in chai tz'ŭ, which was reproduced in 1928 from the original manuscript (shou-kao pên 手稿本) in the Kuo-hsüeh Library, Nanking.
[2/70/16a; 3/428/31a; 17/1/54a; Yu T'ung [q. v.], 艮齋倦稿 Kên-chai chüan kao, for poem in ch. 9/8b which gives the date of death; Shan-pên shu-shih ts'ang-shu chih (see under Ting Ping) 40/29a.]
Fang Chao-ying